


Everything I Wanted

by BlessedAreTheFandoms



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dominion War (Star Trek), Everyone on that station needs therapy, First Kiss, Garak is observant, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Season/Series 06, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, candle play but not sexily, sideways of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlessedAreTheFandoms/pseuds/BlessedAreTheFandoms
Summary: In the thick of the Dominion War, Dr. Julian Bashir is not coping well with the death and destruction he sees regularly.  Trying to hide one's secrets from a masterful liar, however, may be beyond Julian's skill--and being unmasked might be exactly what he needs.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	Everything I Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> I find it fitting that I wrote and finished this in Holy Week (a Christian observance of the trial, death, and burial of Jesus, culminating in the resurrection on Easter Sunday). I'm fortunate that quarantining hasn't been an undue hardship as yet, but I am aware that it gives me entirely too much time to be in my own head and there are sharp and dark spaces there.
> 
> So, dear Reader, if you, like Julian, are struggling with coping, please take care of yourself. You are lovely and you do not deserve to be harmed, even at your own hand, and just because I might not have met you doesn't mean that isn't true. You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to be accomplished, you don't have to weather a pandemic or a life change or an illness or anything as though you are phenomenal at it because none of us has ever done this before. This, like the Dominion War, is a big and messy and complicated thing that cannot be controlled by you, and that's okay.

It was always surprising—and, in a way he didn’t want to admit to himself, gratifying—when he actually got burned. Curiously, Julian Bashir turned his hand over, examining the angry red flesh, cataloging the pain—was it as bad as last time? Was it starting to cloud his judgment? Certainly not the latter. He could feel his brain calculating how much time he had before it scarred, before there was true nerve damage, how many milligrams the hypospray would require to numb the pain, how long he would have to use the dermal regenerator. 

It was always surprising to him when he actually got burned. It was almost like he was human.

He set to work with his medical kit, healing himself again.

***

“Why, Doctor, you look rather pleased with yourself today,” said Elim Garak in merry suspicion as he sat down to their lunch table in the replimat.

“I pulled off a particularly tricky surgery this morning, if you must know,” responded Julian, shifting his tray out of Garak’s way, “and I _am_ rather pleased about it.”

“Well, how fortunate this station is to have such a medical officer to pull off ‘tricky’ surgeries. I trust the patient agrees that the procedure was a success?”

Julian rolled his eyes at Garak and laughed. “Yes, they do, and are glad of it.”

“How embarrassing it would have been had it proved too tricky for you, I imagine.”

Frowning, Julian leaned back. “Embarrassing?”

Garak shrugged innocently. “Given your track record in the last few months of tricky surgeries and seemingly impossible feats of medical prowess, it would be most unfortunate to have something go awry that you could not fix.”

Julian’s palms felt sweaty at the thought, but no; he was built to be better, to move faster, to solve, to fix. His track record was as it should be—spotless. “Most unfortunate,” he agreed, realizing Garak was still watching him with that abundantly false veneer of innocence. Julian quickly turned the conversation to their latest novel of debate, his hands clenching around his utensils, the newly-healed skin pulling over his knuckles.

***

It was unusual for Julian to play this game so often; he knew the consequences of constantly re-healing the same kind of wound, knew the body was not meant to be torn apart and knit together so frequently, but Garak’s comment at their lunch had rattled him. Was it about his record? It would not be embarrassing to fail—it would be mortifying, shameful, disappointing to the station that needed a CMO who could do his job to the best of his ability.

Julian rolled up his sleeves as the candle flame caught, the multiple wicks dancing to life. He was always very careful not to catch anything else on fire; an open fire on a closed space station was beyond dangerous and he knew it. But there had to be something, some test, some measurement that had consequences, real consequences to him alone. He had created the specifications for this kind of candle long ago, a candle of wicks that moved, of hidden pockets of air that spiked the fire higher, challenging him to move faster, faster, to save the hands that were his profession. Taking a deep breath, he ran one hand through the bright orange tongues, feeling the heat brush against his palm. He wove his hands through the flames, pausing ever so slightly, anticipating the changes, playing the wounding game with this candle. Could he beat it? Was he fast enough?

Was he good enough?

The door chime interrupted him, pulling his concentration just long enough for him to miss an air pocket, the rising sparks catching the edge of his thumb. Burnt twice in as many days; Garak was right, he was losing his edge. What if he lost it in surgery? Distractions happened and there, distractions could mean not a singed finger but loss of life. The thought sickened him.

The door chimed again. “One moment!” Julian called out as he hurriedly extinguished the candle and hid it away. He didn’t have time to fix his hand; it was a surface burn, stingingly painful but not immediately dangerous. It could wait until he answered this late-night guest, though it could not wait too long. Julian understood the need for his surgeon’s hands to be perfect, as the entirety of him needed to be perfect.

Except this guest would not be quick to leave. “Good evening, Doctor,” said Garak as he stepped through the opened door. Julian turned quickly to follow, keeping his injured hand out of sight behind his back.

“Garak,” said Julian, “how unexpected. What brings you here?”

“I must confess that there was an exchange at our lunch today that has been bothering me considerably.”

“Something that couldn’t wait until our next meeting?”

Garak smiled at him, a smile that could possibly be termed patronizing. “It could not, I’m afraid. Have I interrupted something?”

“Ah, no,” said Julian, stuttering slightly over the lie. “Is this an involved something?”

“Why, Doctor, I shall not take up too much of your time if you have other plans for the evening.” Something about Garak’s tone told Julian that there was more underneath this visit than a missed literary connection, something beyond even Garak’s usual preference for operating on at least three levels at all times. His breath caught; did Garak know? Had he suspected? Julian’s thumb throbbed behind his back, the skin hot and tight.

“I fear I did not exercise sufficient admiration for your skill in the surgical task you mentioned of the morning,” Garak said. Julian felt wrong-footed and strange. Garak, not only offering a compliment but _making sure_ to congratulate him?

“Ah,” said Julian. “I’m sure you did a fine job.”

Garak tilted his head and pursed his lips. “But you did not even have the chance to explain it to me, a task I know you usually quite enjoy.”

 _Oh_. Garak was making fun of him. It was unusually cruel of him to go out of his way to poke at Julian like this, but Garak never missed an opportunity to needle Julian on his ego. “Yes,” said Julian, his tone frosty, “I admit I can get caught up in the minutiae of my work and I thank you for your forbearance when I do go off on a tangent, but I took no slight in your not humoring me as such today.”

“Humoring you? My dear doctor, I find it _fascinating_ what you do.”

Julian dug his nails into his palm in frustration and sucked in a slight breath at the activation of pain in his thumb it caused. “All right, Garak, you’ve had your fun for the evening. I’ll remember to keep my Federation ego in check at our lunches and you’ll not come to my quarters to take the mickey out of me again, deal?”

“‘Mickey’?” said Garak. “No, Dr. Bashir, it is not a deal, as you seem to be misreading my intentions entirely.”

“I’m not in the mood for your games right now, Garak!” Julian reached out in exasperation to herd Garak to the door, realizing too late that he had quite literally shown his hand.

“Doctor,” Garak noted quietly, far too quietly for it to be anything other than sincere, “you appear to be injured.”

“I’m fine,” Julian said curtly, pulling his hand back. “I would like you to leave now.”

“Doctor—”

“Out.”

Garak studied him a moment and Julian fought to stand tall under that gaze, to pretend like everything was okay, that he was fine, that it didn’t scare him sick that Garak, _Garak_ of all people, had seen this. Would he connect the dots?

Would it be so bad if he did?

“ _Go_ ,” Julian all but snarled, fear and anger and a miserable sort of hope warring within him. Garak opened his mouth, closed it silently, and left.

***

Julian threw himself into his work for the next week, avoiding everything that wasn’t connected to his research or his patients. He brushed off Miles’ invitations and Jadzia’s suggestions, pleading focus. He did this often enough that they were disappointed but not surprised; everyone knew Julian had a slightly manic streak that could bury him in a single data thread for days at a time while he followed it to its end, and with the war on he had more than enough to keep him justifiably occupied.

Avoiding Garak was, surprisingly, even easier.

It was funny—this is what he wanted, this time to be left in peace so he could concentrate. Really, he had been getting sloppy in how much time he spent away from the problem of ketracel white, from the wounded pouring in from seemingly all over the quadrant, from the looming threat of the Dominion. It was a gift, this isolation. It reminded him to be the doctor he was supposed to be. It was everything he wanted.

He tried not to think about why, then, he brought out the candle nearly every night; why he found himself taking a step, two toward Garak’s Clothiers sometimes before stopping himself, remembering. He didn’t want Garak’s questions. He didn’t want to have to admit how imperfect he really was to the alien with the ocean blue eyes that held him with an almost physical force. He didn’t want Garak’s scorn at how he couldn’t hold himself together anymore, not when he had seen Garak bear so much with such stoicism.

It meant nothing at all that he dreamed of Garak understanding.

***

It was a routine thing—as much as ships full of dead and dying had become routine, and wasn’t that a commentary on the state of things. An Algolian ship carrying a few Benzites, so relatively recent to the Federation, had been attacked fleeing Cardassian space. It didn’t matter why they were there, what the battle had been like; it mattered that they had ended up in Julian’s care and he had failed them. He had not been able to save the Benzites. His staff had done most of the work of saving a minority of the Algolians.

He was so tired of the body count, so tired of the sometime-soldiers coming through the airlocks already mostly dead, so tired of all that he couldn’t do even with all of the Federation’s advanced technology at his fingertips. He looked at the rows and rows of sheet-shrouded bodies and felt sick to his core. It was so much death, so much senseless death.

It was too much.

Shooting off some excuse to his nurse, Julian stumbled out of the infirmary, bile and tears and heat rising within him as he heard again the accusations that whispered to him—he should be better, he was made to be better than this, wasn’t it better when the imposter was in charge, now he was back he had to be perfect, it was his infirmary, it was _his fault_.

He fled to his quarters, the rows of bodies over the last few years flashing through his mind, his cocky enthusiasm about “frontier medicine” scornfully repeating in his mind. Once in his quarters, his anger won out, boiling him from the inside. He retrieved his candle, hands surprisingly steady as he lit the wicks considering how much he felt like shaking inside. He deserved to simply hold his hands over the flame, to feel the fire burn through him as it had through so many of the Algolians, their charred flesh crumbling under these hands that could not save. He reached out a palm, held it steady, waited for the air pocket that would spike the warm flickers into a blaze that consumed without caring, war in orange and yellow.

The door chimed.

“Go away!” Julian shouted without even thinking, and there, the wick shifted and the tongue of fire curled upward to his fingertips and the heat and the tightness were exactly what he deserved, what he _needed_ —

“Julian!” he heard behind him, and he felt himself being pulled back from the candle, his skin red and shining.  


“What the hell?” he said, turning in the grip of—Garak.

Garak had overridden his door codes.

“What are you doing?” Julian cried, his hand pulsing dangerously. “Let me go!” In the background noise of his mind, he could see the calculations rolling through—heal the hand in the next minute or permanent scarring likely, epidermis severely compromised, blisters imminent, second degree burn, possibly third.

“Julian, where is your medkit?”

“What?” Julian felt stupid, heavy, the searing pain in his hand fighting with the shock in his mind that Garak had pulled him away, that Garak _was here_.

“Your medkit, Julian! Where do you keep it? Tell me, right now.” The steel in Garak’s voice was binding, grounding; it was a voice Julian had to obey, could not do else.

“Nightstand, bedroom,” Julian said, his voice distant. Garak stalked into the bedroom, returning quickly with the medkit Julian kept, flinging it onto the table and rummaging through it.

“Give me your hand,” he ordered, and Julian reached out to him. Garak grabbed his wrist, roughly, running the dermal regenerator over the center of the burn. “What else do you need to do to heal this?” he said.

Julian rattled off the list of soothing and restoring burned skin as though he were in a medical exam at school. Garak pulled each tool out of the kit, operating them as though he, too, had trained in their functions. He never let go of Julian’s wrist, his grip just short of painfully tight. Julian felt the rush of cool skin regenerating over the burn, golden-brown and smooth.

They simply stood there for a few moments after Garak put the last tool back, Garak staring down at Julian’s hand, Julian staring at Garak with a thousand questions and emotions and reactions searing through him.  


“How did you know?” he finally said, surprised that that was the one that won out.

Garak rubbed a thumb over Julian’s wristbone. “I suspected,” he said. “There were several times you came to lunch and your hands looked too—new, in some sense. You couldn’t be injuring yourself that often in the infirmary, you’re too good at your work. So I came by to catch you off-guard two weeks ago, to see if the answer lay in something you did in your off-hours. You hid your hand from me until I proved too frustrating. I only caught a glimpse, but it was burned. There is no safe reason to have a real fire on a space station, and your avoidance of me in the time following confirmed my deduction that you did not want me to see that. When I heard about the ship today and the low number of survivors, I went looking for you. They said you had left rather abruptly; I chanced the conclusion that you would come back here, perhaps to cause yourself further injury.”

Julian sighed, gaze falling to the floor. He should have known better than to be so obvious around a _spy_ , of all people. Of course Garak would notice, would piece it together. He felt ashamed, foolish, and further horrified that there was a deep sense of _relief_ underneath. Someone else knew.

Someone who would now be disgusted by him. He was not fit to be a doctor nor, it seemed, a friend.

“Julian,” said Garak, so softly even Julian’s advanced hearing was a little strained. “Julian, look at me.”

It was an entirely different tone than the commanding one of earlier but somehow no less authoritative. Julian found himself looking Garak in the eye almost despite himself.

“Why do you burn your hands?”

Julian laughed, a sharp bark of a sound, and his still-stinging hand convulsed in Garak’s grip. “Why? Why not, Garak? It’s not as though I deserve to be in one piece, healthy and untouched when rows upon rows of braver people are dead in my freezers.”

Garak’s other hand came up and brushed Julian’s hair to one side, the intimacy of it surprising Julian. "Oh, my beautiful, stupid doctor,” Garak sighed. “Do you truly not know how good you are?”

Julian’s brows knitted together in confusion. “I—what? No; Garak, I was—I was made to be better, to _do_ better than this, and yet there are so many I can’t save and how dare I call myself a doctor when I’m not fixing anything, I’m just patching people up to send them back out to fight, I am so _useless_ and I can’t fix the Jem Hadar and I can’t save my friends and I can’t do anything in this war, I the high and mighty Julian Bashir, genetic augment, salutatorian of my class, youngest person ever nominated for the Carrington Award. What a laugh.” His voice was derisive, harsh, as he pulled away from Garak’s fingertips resting gently on his temple. “You—thank you for healing my hand, Garak, but I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to all my failures.”

“Are you dismissing me?”

“I—no, it’s not—I’m not your commander, I can’t dismiss you.”

“But you can tell me to leave. Again.”

Julian sighed. “Now that you’ve seen in full how pathetic I am? I’m surprised you haven't left already.”

Garak pulled on the wrist he still held, drawing Julian in closer to him. “Why on Prime would I leave?”

Julian found it was suddenly hard to breathe this close to Garak, his wrist still in Garak’s gentle and cool grip, their chests centimeters apart. “I—I am such a mess, Garak.”

Garak smiled. “Whereas I am the paragon of coping skills and measured reactions.”

Julian chuckled lightly. Hesitantly, stutteringly, he brought up his other hand and rested it Garak’s shoulder; it felt like they were about to dance together. “Whereas you do not burn yourself to try and handle a war.”

Garak brought the newly-healed hand to his lips, brushing a kiss over the palm, light as air. “That I do not,” he agreed.

Julian’s brain felt like it was short-circuiting. Not only had Garak come looking for him, not only had he healed him, not only had he not berated Julian like the failure he was, but now Garak was _so close_ and he had just _kissed his hand_. “You can’t seriously be interested in me,” he blurted out, the caboose of his train of thought clanking off the track and out of his mouth.

Something shuttered in Garak’s eyes, a cold and blank sheet of distance. He released Julian’s hand and took a step backward. “I cannot be serious?” he asked.

“No, Garak, I— _ugh_ ,” Julian said, pulling on his hair. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to downplay whatever—whatever is going on for you—”

“But you’re quite right, Doctor, that this is hardly the time to broach such matters. You are clearly in an altered state; it was wrong of me to take advantage.”

“Garak, no, that’s—” Garak turned toward the door and Julian knew that something would break, something would be lost that he could never recover if Garak reached it and Julian was beyond tired of losing things, people. “Wait,” he said, reaching out and taking Garak’s hand in his own.

The look of pain and longing and bottomless sorrow that flickered in Garak’s eyes for the briefest second as he turned back stunned Julian, though it was quickly covered in glass-smooth blue. Garak raised his eyeridges in invitation as Julian failed to say anything for several heartbeats.

“I meant that I am not—not worth being interested in,” explained Julian, his hand feeling strange on so many levels in Garak’s.

Garak sighed and turned fully back to Julian. “Doctor, how long have we been acquainted?"

Julian frowned in confusion. “Five years, give or take.”

Garak’s expression said he knew Julian could name the time down to the number of days if he so chose, but he let it be. “And how many of my secrets do you know?”

The question caught Julian totally off-guard. “I—I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Much of what you tell me is a lie.”

“But what did I tell you especially about lies?”

“That they’re true, too.”

“Very good. And how many of your secrets do I know?”

Julian wanted to say something witty, something clever— _that would be telling_ \--but he was so rarely witty or clever. “Quite a few,” he said instead.

“So we have known each other a considerable amount of time, you know a good many things about me, and I am not flattering myself unduly to say that I know some things about you. Why, exactly, do you contend that you are not worth my interest, should I choose to give it?”

Aware that he and Garak were still holding hands, Julian shrugged. “I am…broken.”

“Beyond repair?”

Julian shrugged again.

They stood in silence for a moment, Garak searching Julian’s face for something Julian did not know. He felt naked under such scrutiny and tried not to fidget.

“If I could change the way you see yourself,” Garak said finally, his voice almost wistful—as much as Garak ever tended toward wistfulness—and soft, “I would show you what I see. You are striking, brilliant, infuriating, naïve, canny, talented, pompous, generous, compassionate, hopeful, resilient, foolish, reckless, beautiful, witty, determined, and optimistic, but you are not broken. You are not worthless, you are not stupid, you are most certainly not useless, and I have grown quite fond of you in our shared adventures. I consider you a friend—and would like to consider you in ways rather beyond the usual bounds of friendship.”

Julian was having trouble keeping up with such a complicated list of attributes, several of which truly were not compliments, but all of it was shoved to the side with Garak’s last statement. “You—you would?”

Garak nodded.

"But I am not perfect."

Garak laughed, a full and rich laugh that Julian had not heard from him in some time. “Oh, my dear, what on Bajor would I do with someone who was perfect? We Cardassians love a challenge, after all.”

“So, you’re okay with—this?” Julian raised their enjoined hands, referencing his own.

Squeezing the raised hand, Garak shook his head. “I am not ‘okay’ in the sense that I will turn a blind eye to this and allow it to continue. I know enough of your Federation mindset to know that harming yourself in this way is not an ideal reaction to the demands of your world. I will not force you into any method of changing this behavior—other than getting rid of that fire contraption of yours—but I will not condone its continuance. I _am_ ‘okay’ in the sense that I am not going to tell you to stop being yourself—any part of yourself, and I am not dissuaded from my ‘interest’ in you by this information.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Julian pondered this a moment. “I guess we’ll keep having the conversation about the burning,” he said.

Garak inclined his head in agreement.

“Wartime is a pretty stupid time to start anything like a relationship,” Julian noted. Something like shutters started to fall down Garak’s eyes again. “But we’re not really starting from scratch, are we?” he added quickly. “Like you said, we’ve had some shared—adventures.” A quick-run series of memories rolled through his mind, from that first moment of Garak’s hand on his shoulder to this strange occurrence of Garak’s hand wrapped around his. “So I guess—if you’re willing to…to support me while I, um, figure this out, I—I think I would like to consider you in new ways, too.”

“You ‘think’?” repeated Garak, doubtful.

“I am quite interested in the notion,” Julian corrected with a smile. “And I think now is a fine time to consider at least one new way—then you can destroy the candle, if you must.”

Garak only had time to raise one eyeridge in question before Julian leaned forward and kissed him, gently, hesitantly, the shock of it running through them both before he pulled away, the feeling of those cool lips tingling on his own.

“It is a very good distraction attempt, Doctor,” said Garak, sounding slightly breathless.

“Was it not good in and of itself?”

The smile that reached all the way to Garak’s eyes was beyond lascivious. “Perhaps we should try again, just to be sure.” He wrapped his free hand around Julian’s head, drawing him impossibly close, and he could feel Julian’s smile against his as they kissed again, more deeply, and Garak brought their clasped hands to his chest, fingers entwined in acknowledgement, in promise, and it was everything either of them wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and a few lines are nicked from Billie Eilish's song "Everything I Wanted," which is melancholy and very much fit what this tale ended up being.
> 
> Garak's awareness is perhaps more serendipitous than is properly in character, but I have the headcanon that both these men have at least explored self-harm in their lives. (This is supported by the excellent tale of Garak's struggles in zaan's [The Incarceration of Elim Garak](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080845/chapters/37552457), as well as other such examinations.)


End file.
